Now... Just curious, if I simply make my study into a faraday cage via use of fine (< 1/2 inch) chicken wire, and insulate my power system from the computer emenations, would that be enough? Chicken wire is not that expensive, and I think that I could make it look nice on walls.
The cages I've used were framed in wood and had several layers of copper screening. The mesh was like standard window screen, <.125". There were two, I think sometimes three, layers. The corners/joints were copper sheet. The screen was soldered to the corners. The doors were stepped or beveled and had several sets of fingers - indside edge, outside edge, perhaps one intermediate. Screen makes ventilation easier. Power should be brought in through a separate, partitioned, shielded box with filtering in each partition. Phone lines, same thing. You trust your apps, os and TCP/IP stack to not rat you out? If not, work off-line always. One cage I saw had ferrite tiles on the solid walls to minimize internal reflections which would cut down on leakage too. Al foil if it were thick enough would be OK but how do you reliably join edges? Al has a bad habit of oxidizing rapidly in air. I guess you could fold edges over several times - seems tacky. Converting your study is non-trivial. The door would look like crap. You would need the euivalent of a door over the window. Build one in your garage. Make it out of sections so you can move it. 6' x 8' seems about right for a couple computers and some lab equip. Is the cost justified? I wouldn't trust 1/2" galvanized chicken wire for containing anything but chickens or other non-gnawing furry woodland creatures. Mike